In general, a seat belt device provided with a retractor is installed on a vehicle and so forth, in order to protect an occupant sitting on a seat. The occupant wears the webbing (the seat belt) pulled out from a winding drum of the retractor and is restrained to the seat by the webbing. When the webbing is suddenly pulled out due to movement of the occupant, rotation in a pull-out direction of the winding drum is stopped by a lock mechanism of the retractor, and puling-out of the webbing is stopped.
In addition, the webbing unfastened from the occupant is wound up on the winding drum and is stored in the retractor until it will be pulled out the next. However, when winding-up of the webbing is terminated, there are cases where the lock mechanism erroneously operates by reaction of sudden stop of rotation of the winding drum. When the lock mechanism operates, rotation of the retractor in the pull-out direction is stopped and it becomes impossible to pull out the webbing from the retractor. At the same time, since the entire of the webbing is wound up, winding-up of the webbing cannot be performed, and then an end lock trouble occurs in the retractor. In response to this, conventionally, there is known a retractor that releases the end lock by pulling out the webbing (see Patent Literature 1).
However, in the conventional retractor described in Patent Literature 1, when the end lock is to be released, it is necessary to rotate the entire of a lock gear by pulling out the webbing by force until the end lock is released. In association therewith, there is a tendency that force required for pulling out the webbing is increased and it is feared that it may be difficult to release the end lock depending on the force of each occupant. Accordingly, in regard to the conventional retractor, improvement to be easily and surely released from the end lock is expected.